Tips

Tips & News for Better Computing

Web: It's Not Me, It's You.

When you think of the ideal Website for your business, what comes to mind? If you’re like many people, you envision a slick color scheme, details about your business, and pictures of your business. Let me introduce some ideas that may change your mind regarding all those things.

When people go to your Website, how will you engage them? Will they read about your business history? Will they be impressed with your equipment? Will they remember your savvy choice of colors? Generally, the answer is no.

Your Website needs to load quickly, it needs to be simple to navigate, and -- most importantly -- it needs to make the visitor feel important. In this post, we’ll explore the “feel important” part.

Your new, great Website should be all about the visitor, and what they’re going through. Imagine that you’re an attorney for this example. OK, stop chasing ambulances. You’ve got to focus on your marketing for a minute. Let’s compare your imaginary old Website to your new one.

Right now, your home page is all about where you went to school, how you’ve worked in the community, and below that you have a link to join up for your newsletter. There’s also a phone number on there somewhere.

None of those things make your visitor feel important. Let’s change that. The new wording on your homepage will be, “Get the legal help you need, now.” That relates to what your visitor is thinking. We’ll put a big, prominent button on there with your phone number. The button will say “Call Us”.

Next, we’ll post a picture of a happy client who you just helped. The picture will help visitors imagine that they’ll get great help, too.

We’ll put that “Call Us” button all over the place, but some visitors won’t be ready to call just yet. Likewise, they won’t sign up for your newsletter, ever. How will you remind them that you can help? You need their email address. So let’s put some real, useful information on your site.

Create a document called “Five mistakes people make when selecting an attorney.” Later, you’ll create a video version of this and other helpful information. For now, when people want the document, you offer to email it to them. That way, they get something useful now, and you can send them useful follow-ups later.

Let’s stop pretending to be a lawyer. Let’s be a florist:

Change “The best flowers in town” to “Make the best impression with these amazing flowers.” That makes the visitor an active part of the wording, and describes what they want to do.

Finally, we’ll be a doctor:

Change “Providing medical care to the community since 1999” to “Your new doctor really cares about you, and she’s just a click away.” That old paragraph about how you care, how you treat people like family, and about how you’ve expanded your office is too long. Nobody will read it. People are bombarded with information all the time. You need to give them the most important stuff fast, and tell them what they can do to get help.

And now we’re back to being ourselves. These examples are rough. I made them up in seconds and I would love to read your examples in the comments section. Hopefully, you see the direction you can go to craft better relationships with visitors. With a little time, your Website will be a resource that people enjoy. In exchange, they’ll give you more business. Everybody wins!